


Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

by renecdote



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Damian Needs a Hug, Fluff, Gen, Nightmares, and sleep, tim is a good brother, use of sedatives to show love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 05:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14158206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: Damian has been having really bad nightmares and Tim notices.





	Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

**Author's Note:**

> This one was written to fill a few requests on tumblr.

Tim’s hunt for a late night snack is halted by the sound of muffled crying. He pauses outside of Damian’s bedroom, brows pulling down as he considers the closed door. On the one hand, he’s curious about this strange noise in an almost-empty house. It’s almost three in the morning and Batman and Nightwing are still on patrol. Alfred is monitoring the computer in the cave. Tim is benched because of a sprained wrist and Damian has a bedtime that Bruce is actually doing a pretty good job of enforcing (even if the actual time of it, two a.m. unless there’s an emergency, suggests bad parenting). 

On the other hand, all that means Damian and Tim are the only ones in the bedroom wing so there’s no doubt that the kid is the one crying. And that’s just downright unnerving. Tim is pretty sure he’s only ever seen Damian cry once. Maybe twice. And he’d felt just as lost about what to do then as he does now.

Should he knock, go in and see what’s wrong? Offer comfort? His instincts say yes; someone is in distress and he should help. His brain says… Well, his brain is kind of short-circuiting at the moment. Seeing the kid being vulnerable is likely a +100 on the odds that he’ll try to maim Tim. He wouldn’t want Tim to see him crying, definitely wouldn’t want Tim to try comforting him.

...but what if he would?

No. No, he’s crying in the middle of the night. Probably because he knows Bruce and Dick (people who would care and offer comfort) are still out patrolling, which means Alfred is also preoccupied. And he probably thinks Tim is asleep because, well, Tim should be asleep. Or maybe he’s just counting on Tim not caring enough to check on him even if he hears the crying. Tim winces. That is... not an unfair assumption to count on.

When he’d come upstairs to go to bed (if not to sleep) at Alfred’s behest an hour and a half earlier, he’s sure Damian had been asleep. There’d been no light or sound coming from his room, except Titus’s soft snores. It’s likely that the cause of his distress now is a nightmare. A normal occurrence in their family, and one that they all generally agree to turn a blind eye to unless the person wants to talk about it. Tim should just mind his own business.

If the nightmares are bad enough to make Damian  _ cry _ though...

The sound of movement, covers rustling and light footsteps, comes from behind the door and Tim makes a snap decision. He turns and hurries back toward his bedroom, closing the door and leaning back against it with a quiet sigh just as Damian’s door opens further down the hall. He finds that his appetite for a snack has suddenly vanished.

—

There are dark bags under Damian’s eyes and Tim hates that he can’t just notice them and move on with his breakfast. No, he has to notice them and  _ think _ about them. Think about why they’re there and how long they’ve been there. Think about what he heard last night.

“Morning Damian,” Bruce says, surfacing from his perusal of the newspaper to greet the boy when he joins them at the table. “Did you sleep alright?”

“Yes,” Damian replies. Prim as always. “I slept fine, Father, thank you. I trust your night went well?”

Tim narrows his eyes. Lie, perfectly delivered, followed by deflection in the guise of politeness. His gaze flickers to Bruce to see if he caught it, but Bruce is telling Damian patrol went fine and eating his breakfast like nothing is wrong.

Not that something is wrong, exactly. Just that. Well. Is it really any of Tim’s business that Damian wants to keep his nightmares to himself? It’s not like that’s a rare occurrence in their family. And Tim doesn’t really like sharing his own so bringing attention to Damian’s nightmares would be hypocritical.

But Damian had been  _ crying _ .

Damn. This is getting to him more than he thought it would, even after tossing and turning for several hours last night (and creeping back down the hall one more time to listen at Damian’s door). Why does he even care?

“Is something wrong, Tim?” Bruce asks, startling Tim back to the present, and the realisation that he’d been staring into his muesli without eating for several long minutes. 

“No,” Tim says, eyes flicking toward Damian. “Just tired.”

—

That night, the Batmobile roars into the Cave early. Tim turns idly from where he’s sitting at the Batcomputer as Batman and Robin pour out of the vehicle arguing.

“-rtner who exhibits such reckless behaviour.”

“It was one fight - and I still won!”

“It was not  _ one fight _ , you’ve been sloppy and careless all week. And one day you  _ won’t  _ win.”

“I’ve been trained since birth-“

“I don’t care how much training you’ve had! If you can’t take care of yourself, how do I know you can watch my back in the field?”

“If you don’t want me to be Robin why don’t you just say so?! At least when Grayson was Batman he never  _ pretended _ he wanted to work with me!”

Silence. The hard lines of Bruce’s face are like granite beneath the cowl. Tim holds his breath, wants to say something, to, what? Defend Damian? Say he didn’t mean it, that he’s just tired and cranky? But he stays silent.

“You’re benched.”

Damian’s lips twist with a snarl. Then he turns on his heel and storms upstairs.

Tim sinks back into his chair with a frown and watches the Batmobile speed back out into the night.

—

It becomes evident very quickly that Damian isn’t sleeping. Not enough, at least, and Tim isn’t sure whether he can’t because nightmares keep waking him, or he doesn’t want to because the nightmares will come if he does. Either way, spending his nights in bed instead of on patrol hasn’t put a dent in the bags under Damian’s eyes. They may have even gotten darker.

Tim sighs. Something has to be done. But what?

And is he really the right person to do it?

—

In the end, he goes to Alfred about it. Tim sits at the island bench and squeezes lemon into his tea so he doesn’t have to look Alfred in the eye as he asks, “Did you, um, did you know Damian’s been having nightmares?”

There’s a weighted pause from by the stove and Tim glances up to find the butler giving him a curious look. “Yes,” he says. Turns back to stir the pot of bechamel sauce he’s making. “I am aware of Master Damian’s nightmares. Why do you ask?”

Tim shrugs. He’d thought maybe he’d bring Alfred’s attention to it and that would be it. Alfred would take care of it and Tim could stop… worrying. Worrying over what to do about it, that is, not worrying about Damian.

“I don’t think he’s sleeping,” Tim offers when Alfred continues to wait for an answer instead of just serving Tim a solution on a silver platter. “He’s been more… irritable than usual.”

(It’s not a lie; Tim stopped to pat Alfred the Cat in the library yesterday and Damian almost stabbed a paintbrush through his hand.)

“I see,” Alfred says, in that omniscient tone that makes Tim wonder whether he knows about the paintbrush incident. “Perhaps you should give Master Damian some space. If his sleep does not improve, I will speak to him.”

“Okay,” Tim agrees, but as he stares into his tea, watching the steam curl softly upward, a different idea begins to brew. Talking to Damian won’t solve the problem, he’s sure. More extreme measures will have to be taken.

—

He tries passionflower first. Then every other natural sedative he can get his hands on.

But if Damian doesn’t wrinkle his nose at the strangely bitter taste of whatever drink he chooses to have before bed, then he sleeps only a few short hours before nightmares drag him screaming back to consciousness.

Tim thumps his head back against his door with a frustrated sigh. Herbs haven’t worked, so it’s time to pull out all the stops.

—

The oven says it’s eleven fifty-two as Tim watches the mug spin around in the microwave. In his left hand, he clutches a small bottle tightly. He’s only ever seen Alfred use it on Bruce, but he did calculations and he’s sure he can adjust the dose for a child.

A teabag colours the steaming water first and then Tim stirs in a few careful drops of the sedative. Tea prepared, Tim grips the mug carefully and heads upstairs. Two minutes later he is knocking firmly on Damian’s door. 

“Drake,” Damian greets when he pulls the door open, but his usual disdain falls flat and his glare is more of a tired squint, “what do you want?”

Tim pushes the mug of tea into Damian’s hands. “This is for you.”

Damian sniffs the tea warily and Tim isn’t even surprised that he’s caught on to what’s been going on. “Has this one been… tainted, as well?” 

There’s no point lying. “Yes.”

Damian nods. He sits the tea down on his desk. “Tell Pennyworth I don’t need his remedies,” he says stiffly.

Tim rolls his eyes. So maybe Damian hasn’t caught on as much as he thought. Budding detective that he is (and son of the world’s greatest), Tim is sure that exhaustion is the only reason he hasn’t put all the pieces together yet.

“Alfred didn’t drug the tea.”

His brother frowns. “I don’t understand,” he says slowly. He shakes his head, like he’s trying to dispel cobwebs from his thoughts. “You… why would you…”

“I’m worried about you, okay?” Tim snaps. He throws his hands up and drags his fingers back through his hair. “You have been acting seriously out of character the past few weeks and it’s unnerving. So just. Drink the damn tea and go the fuck to sleep.”

Damian is staring at him, mouth open in a small o of surprise. 

Then he drinks the damned tea.

And he goes the fuck to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are love, or find me on tumblr [here](http://tantalum-cobalt.tumblr.com).


End file.
